• by Larissa Faw , October 29, 2014

He just couldn't stay away. Industry veteran Ben Ryken is rejoining Level Studios, a digital marketing agency within the Publicis Groupe network. Ryken will become director of business development, a new position.

He is responsible for bringing new clients to Level Studios and driving the agency’s growth strategy. He will report to Level Studios’ President Dan Connolly. 

While Ryken most recently worked at Etna Interactive, the bulk of his career has been at Level. In fact, his long history with the agency led to the creation of his new role.

Ryken initially worked at Web Associates, which was later rebranded as Level Studios in 2008. During this time, Ryken served in various roles, including web developer, senior account executive, account director and later vice president of account management. He was also the co-founder of Refresh, a strategic design studio focused on developing Web, print and motion solutions.

After two years of working in the elective healthcare marketing space, Ryken says he had a strong desire to return to working with large global brands, so he approached Level Studios to discuss rejoining the team. 

In addition to his digital expertise, Ryken has experience in project planning, software design and production, data analysis and cloud services strategy. He has worked with clients across various industry groups, including: ESPN Zone, HP, Apple, Netflix, Snapfish, HTC, Nokia and Red Bull. All of these skills and relationships will be utilized in his new position. 

“Ben is deeply engrained in Level’s history and culture, and brings the right mix of experience needed to aggressively build our pipeline,” said Connolly.

Level Studios has made a number of key leadership moves over the last three months in an effort to build out its executive leadership team, including the appointment of Connolly to President and the promotion of Deb Heslip to Partner. The San Jose-based agency now has more than 125 employees across offices in California.